


Boiling Water

by a_big_apple



Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: First Time, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-08
Updated: 2010-01-08
Packaged: 2017-12-05 03:47:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_big_apple/pseuds/a_big_apple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Tamaki has a painful accident in Music Room 3, Kyouya leaps in to help him and is injured himself.  Afterward, a shaken Kyouya accompanies Tamaki home to look after him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic to fill my own prompt on the kink meme, because I needed more h/c-leads-to-sexytiems in my life.

The hosts spent so much time around hot tea and commoner coffee that they’d all scalded a finger once or twice—Kaoru more than the rest, as part of the Brotherly Love act, his reddened skin kissed cool by his twin—but though they’d had little spills or broken teacups or stained Usa-chan incidents, they’d managed to go two years without any real injury. In a way, Kyouya almost expected it to happen; but although he was known for intricate plans and gifted foresight, the Shadow King would never have predicted that the inevitable accident would be the turning point around which his world suddenly bent, lurching out of his control in a new direction.

It was a busy day, which was to be expected. The last day of classes before summer break was always filled with desperate guests, grasping as many moments with their favored hosts as they could before the separation. The warm weather and the relaxed feel of vacation approaching had prompted the hosts to shed their jackets in favor of short-sleeved uniform shirts and loosened ties and collars, which always set the ladies at a higher pitch. 

Honey and Mori could be counted on to handle a sudden influx—it just meant spending more money on Honey-senpai’s cakes—and the twins were in fine form, feeding each other bananas in ways that made their guests squeal and swoon with more intense fervor than usual. Haruhi seemed tired, but somehow that only added to her natural charm, and anyway her designations were generally the more subdued and quietly adoring type.

Tamaki, of course, reveled in the extra attention. He had a glow of vitality about him, a brightness in his eyes and warmth in his words that ensnared his guests even more tightly than usual. Even as they neared the end of the club’s business hours, Tamaki’s voice, honeyed and sincere at once, wove around his designees and through the room at large, showing no sign of tiring.

“Would my beautiful princesses care for more tea? Or coffee, perhaps?”

“I would love some more tea, Tamaki…”

“Me too!”

“Tamaki, I’d rather have some of that coffee you love so much…”

“Anything for my kittens. Don’t move a muscle, I’ll return to your sides before you know it.”

“Oh, Tamaki….”

“He’s even more dreamy today than normal!”

And Tamaki hurried off, with uncanny grace, to fetch another teapot of water as the ladies watched him go and giggled to each other with shining eyes. Kyouya stood on the edges of the day’s activity, jotting down notes, watching every expression, counting every sigh. As Tamaki disappeared into a side room, Kyouya strolled over to the Host King’s designees with a handful of photobooks—he knew from their expressions that, like all the ladies who’d been served before them today, they needed a little bit of the Host Club to tide them over until summer break ended.

He wasn’t sure what made him look up—perhaps Tamaki was just that vibrant today, his presence announcing itself without words—and Kyouya watched the blonde approach, tray in hand. Tamaki, a consummate host, had eyes only for his designees; Kyouya, on the other hand, had always observed everything, catalogued even the tiny details he caught out of the corners of his sharp eyes. The Shadow King saw the banana peel one of the twins had tossed carelessly on the floor; he saw Tamaki moving straight toward it in a beeline for his guests. Kyouya saw, in a flash of calculation and premonition, how the clumsy King would slip, how the tray would fly, how the teapot would rain down just-boiled water in frightening quantity. Later, Kyouya would tell himself and others that he was thinking of the Host Club’s welfare; Tamaki’s angelic face was the driving force of their profits, and Kyouya could not allow it to be scarred. In the moment, though, Kyouya had no thought but _Tamaki_ and _danger_ , and as one King slipped and sent the teapot sailing, the other King leapt in, pushing him back by the shoulders as the scalding water splashed down between them.

Everyone froze for a moment as the teapot glanced off Kyouya’s outstretched arm and shattered on the floor; then Tamaki’s cry, startled and pained, sent the room into chaos. 

Kyouya took in the scene in moments; Tamaki lay half-sprawled on the floor, his face twisted in pain, half his abdomen and his side soaked and his shirt plastered to his skin. Kyouya lunged forward, bent over him as the other hosts leapt from their chairs. With vicious speed he tore the soaked shirt open from the bottom, buttons scattering around them, and pulled it up off Tamaki’s chest; the blonde cried out again, his skin already fiercely red and blistering. 

“Hikaru, cold water and wet cloths, whatever you can find! Kaoru, there should be painkillers in the storeroom. Mori, call the nurse’s office!” 

“Right!”

“Haruhi, you and Honey-senpai please see to our guests.”

“Of course…”

Tamaki, his eyes slitted and face ghost-white, reached out in confusion. “It hurts, it _hurts!_ ”

“Lie still,” Kyouya hissed, catching his hands and pushing him flat. “It’s going to be all right, just keep still.” 

“Kyouya,” Tamaki moaned, and the dark-haired boy shifted to kneel by his head.

“I’m here. Just breathe.” He smoothed Tamaki’s hair back out of his face and lay a hand on his shuddering chest, then looked up, fierce-eyed. “Kaoru!”

“Right here!” The younger twin held up a bottle of pills and a half-empty juice, obviously the first liquid he’d come across; his eyes, though, were drawn to Tamaki’s stomach with a frightened look. 

“Three of them, Kaoru.”

“Right…right.” As the twin fumbled the bottle open and shook out three pills, Kyouya slid an arm under Tamaki’s shoulders, lifting the pale blonde head carefully into his lap.

Hikaru fell to his knees beside them a moment later with an ice bucket of water and a pile of towels. “Senpai—”

“Just keep it wet, Hikaru, and cool. Be careful.”

“O..Okay,” the older twin answered, dunking a towel in the bucket. Kaoru dropped the pills into Kyouya’s outstretched hand with his eyes still fixed on Tamaki’s blistering skin, and reached to help Hikaru lay the now-soaked towel over the burn; the blonde sobbed at the contact, pressing his face into Kyouya’s thigh. 

“Here, Tamaki, swallow these.” The dark-haired boy pressed the three little pills to the blonde’s tight-clenched lips; desperately Tamaki took them, and when Kyouya held the juice to his mouth, he covered the Shadow King’s hands with his own trembling ones. “Easy…”

“The nurse is coming,” Mori reported, bending near them, and Honey clutched his cousin’s leg with a worried expression.

“And all the guests have been sent home,” Haruhi added, kneeling beside Kyouya. “Is there anything else I can—senpai, your hand!” Kyouya glanced over at her, not quite registering, but Haruhi was already reaching for a wet towel from the twins’ pile. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?” She leaned over and took the juice away, setting it aside as she draped the towel over Kyouya’s hand and forearm; it was only then, when the icy cool touched his skin, that Kyouya felt the pain.

It was Mori, a little while later, who carried Tamaki carefully down to the ground floor with the rest of the club following anxiously behind. Kyouya, after a few painkillers of his own, walked alongside talking to the injured blonde about anything and nothing. Tamaki sobbed helplessly whenever the nurse exchanged the towel over his skin as they walked, like an exhausted child, but in between he calmed a little, gripping Kyouya’s good hand. “It doesn’t look like he’ll need to go to the hospital,” the nurse said as she changed the towel again on the second floor landing. “But he should stay in bed for a day or two. His primary physician can prescribe him a stronger painkiller, if need be.”

“I called Shima,” Kaoru piped up from behind Kyouya. “She’s sending a car, and calling his doctor.”

The nurse nodded in approval. “And you should see a physician as well, Ootori-san.”

“I’ll accompany Tamaki home,” Kyouya replied, which wasn’t precisely an affirmative response, but his tone brooked no questioning, and when Mori lay Tamaki in the back seat of the waiting Rolls Royce, Kyouya slid in beside him to cushion his head.

“We’ll come by and see how you and Tama-chan are doing tomorrow, okay Kyo-chan?” Honey confirmed as the nurse rearranged the boys’ towels one last time.

Hikaru and Kaoru looped their arms through Haruhi’s, brightening. “Yeah,” they said together. “We’ll all come by, right Haruhi?”

“Sure,” she said uncertainly, “if that’s all right. And please take care of yourself too, Kyouya-senpai.”

Kyouya just nodded, meeting her eyes, and pushed his glasses absently up his nose. Tamaki, exhausted and finally feeling some of the painkillers’ effects, was half-asleep in his lap when the nurse shut the door on them. The driver pulled smoothly away, leaving the kingless hosts in a lost-looking huddle at the North Building entrance. Kyouya didn’t look back, though; as Tamaki shifted and whimpered softly, Kyouya brushed the knuckles of his good hand over the blonde’s forehead. “It’s all right. You’re all right.”

Later, after the Suoh’s private doctor had seen to both boys and left them with bandages, burn cream, stronger painkillers and strict care instructions, Shima came to Tamaki’s door. “Master Kyouya,” she murmured, a little more gentleness in her voice than usual. “Would you like me to send up dinner?”

“Thank you, Shima…he’ll probably be hungry when he wakes up.”

“I’ll send some for you as well. I’ve already called the Ootori estate to let them know you’ll be staying over.”

Kyouya looked up at her then, and gave a wry smile. “You know me very well. Thank you.”

“It is my pleasure, Master Kyouya.” Then the old woman slipped quietly out, and they were left alone. 

Kyouya turned back to Tamaki; the other boy looked strangely small lying there in the middle of the bed, gauze taped carefully along his ribs and over his stomach, and down over his hip. He seemed fragile, and it made Kyouya’s chest ache peculiarly. To distract himself, he went to the closet and rummaged around for Tamaki’s pajama bottoms, and for the spare pajamas the blonde had insisted Kyouya keep here for himself. He’d never needed them before—he was far from the sleepover type—but he was suddenly grateful for Tamaki’s insistence.

It took some doing to get himself changed without aggravating his own gauze-wrapped skin, but Kyouya was nothing if not self-sufficient, and once he’d finished he turned to Tamaki. He climbed up onto the bed and carefully slid the boy’s pale arms out of his ripped-open shirt. Somehow then, with his sharp shoulders and delicate collarbone exposed, Tamaki looked even more vulnerable; Kyouya paused, studying the subtle tension in his face, the steady rise and fall of his chest. His mouth was a taut line even as he slept, and in a sudden surge of…something, a feeling Kyouya couldn’t readily identify, he wondered if kissing those clenched lips would soothe the boy a little. Then the Shadow King blinked and shook the thought away, startled. _Must be the pain medication_.

Bringing himself back to the task at hand, Kyouya moved down to the bottom of the bed, leaning over with aching fingers to unbuckle Tamaki’s belt and slip off his slacks. The dark-haired boy pushed down the sudden flutter of awkwardness that sprung up in his chest—after all, he saw Tamaki in his underwear every time they changed for Host Club cosplay—and tugged the pajama pants up his slender legs with as little direct contact as possible. By the time a servant arrived with covered dinner trays, Kyouya was propped up with Tamaki’s head pillowed in his lap.

“Tamaki,” he murmured when the servant had left. “It’s dinnertime.” He bent close, laying a hand along the other boy’s cheek. “Wake up now…”

Tamaki’s eyelids fluttered. “Kyou…ya?”

“Yes. You’re home now, and there’s dinner for you. You should eat.”

“How…” Tamaki opened his eyes more, looking up at Kyouya in tired confusion. “What happened?”

Kyouya sighed as though put-upon. “You spilled boiling water on yourself. The doctor’s already been by and said it should heal up quickly if you don’t move around too much. Does it hurt still?”

Tamaki seemed to consider this, then shook his head a little. “Not much. Not like before.”

“Good. Try to sit up with the pillows here, and I’ll get the tray.”

Awkwardly and with the occasional pained hiss, the blonde boy arranged himself more or less upright, looking down at his abdomen with uneasy eyes. “It’s so large…. Will it scar?”

“Not if we take good care of it.”

“We?”

“I’ll stay and help you,” Kyouya replied matter-of-factly, and shifted the dinner tray onto the bed. “You can’t reach all of it yourself without bending too much, and it’s got to be cleaned and rebandaged frequently. Here.”

The dark-haired boy handed him a bowl of soup and a spoon, and Tamaki took it absently, then did a double-take. “Oh, Kyouya! I spilled the water on your hand, too? Is it okay? Let me see it…” Tamaki set the bowl aside again and took Kyouya’s arm gingerly; his fingers were wrapped in thin layers of gauze, snaking up his arm to the elbow. Tamaki looked up at him with a pained expression. “I’m so sorry, Kyouya.”

“Skin heals,” the other boy shrugged. “Perhaps not as prettily, since I can’t help but use my hand while it’s mending, but it’ll be all right soon enough. Renge might even approve.”

“Well, you’ll let me help you with it, right? Promise me!”

“All right, I promise, now eat that soup before you spill it and burn something else!”

When they’d eaten a bit of the food and taken another round of pills, Kyouya set the tray outside the door and took the burn kit the doctor had left them from the bedside table. “I’ll try to be gentle,” he murmured, and Tamaki nodded, laying back against the pillows with a trusting expression. Kyouya tugged the bandage carefully away, relieved to find that it hadn’t stuck to the skin, then pondered for a moment how to rinse an area so large without getting the bed wet or moving him. He settled for piling towels underneath Tamaki, then wringing out a soaking towel across the burn. Tamaki just watched, showing nothing but a tightening in his eyes, and when Kyouya was satisfied he set the towels all aside and pulled one of the antiseptic gloves the doctor had left onto his good hand. He coated it thick with cream and ran it slowly along the edges of the burn, feeling Tamaki’s breath hitch under his hand, then settle again as he spread the cool cream down his stomach and over the edge of his hip. All at once the strange flutter came back to Kyouya’s chest as his slick fingers ran along Tamaki’s hip bone and up his side; Kyouya pushed it back down, scowling a little. Tamaki seemed not to notice; his eyes were closed, and he sighed slowly. 

“That actually feels pretty good,” he murmured. “Soothing.”

Kyouya felt an entirely unwelcome flush creep up his neck, and pulled his hand away. “There, you’re pretty well covered.” He lay a fresh bandage down with care, taping it in place with Tamaki’s eyes on him.

“Are you sure you should be using your hand so much?”

“It’ll be all right.”

Tamaki frowned a little. “If you say so, Kyouya. Now come closer so I can help you.”

“I’m perfectly able to—”

“Don’t argue with me, okaasan. Sit here and let me take care of you a little.” Tamaki fixed him with his familiar demanding frown; the dark-haired boy sighed and gave in, holding out his bandaged hand. “That’s more like it. Tell me if I’m hurting you, all right?”

Kyouya suppressed the urge to snap. “All right, otousan,” he replied, trying to keep his voice mild. Still, he couldn’t help but suck in a hissing breath when the bandage was pulled away. The burn underneath looked uglier than he remembered, blistering up along the inside of his arm and over his fingers.

“Oh God, Kyouya…” Tamaki stared with a horrified expression. 

“It doesn’t feel as bad as it looks,” the Shadow King lied smoothly, and Tamaki snapped back to himself with a little jerk. 

With his jaw tensely set, Tamaki tried the same towel trick to rinse Kyouya’s hand, and tugged two gloves from the box, slathering both hands in cream. Gingerly he took the dark-haired boy’s hand in both of his own, straightening his fingers out to coat them; Kyouya’s good hand fisted in the sheet beside them, a reflex not lost on the blonde boy. Tamaki’s eyes flew up to his for a moment, gauging, before returning to Kyouya’s swelled fingers; he stroked each one with delicate care, and curled his fingers up the other boy’s arm with the featherlight touch of a musician who understands _pianissimo_. Somehow those slender fingers on his arm, fingers that could coax the most beautiful music from piano keys, drew Kyouya’s eyes and made him shudder with the strangeness of the sensation. “Almost done,” Tamaki reassured him, taking the shudder for pain.

Kyouya found his voice long enough to say “no, it’s all right,” and then there was that unsettling flutter again, making his skin feel too tight. 

“There, I think I got it all,” Tamaki murmured, and delicately re-wrapped the angry-looking mess with fresh gauze. Then the calm concentration seemed to melt from Tamaki’s face, and he looked up with a pained expression. “I’m so sorry, Kyouya.”

“You said that already. It’s all right, an accident was bound to happen sometime. At least it’s my left hand.”

“Still…” Tamaki bit his lip, looking at Kyouya’s hand again with watery eyes.

Kyouya smiled a little, and leaned forward on impulse to smooth the other boy’s curls. “You’re exhausted…you should sleep some more.”

Tamaki closed his eyes at the touch, a few tears snaking out from under his eyelids; Kyouya caught one with his thumb, feeling suddenly tender and too tired to resist it. “Don’t cry. Just try to rest. Everything will seem better tomorrow.”

“Will you stay with me?”

Kyouya chuckled and gestured to his pajamas. “Do I look like I’m going anywhere?”

“No, I mean…will you stay right here with me?”

“…Yes.”

“Will you get some sleep too?”

Tamaki’s sudden switch from childlike request to concern made Kyouya smile, and he settled down between the boy’s uninjured side and the bedside table. “I’ll do my best.”

“All right.” Kyouya felt Tamaki’s eyes on him as he pulled the sheet up over their legs and removed his glasses, setting them on the table and clicking the lamp off. Plunged into sudden darkness, he heard more than saw Tamaki settle in; then light fingers found his own and squeezed the tips. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

“Goodnight, Tamaki.”

“Goodnight.”


	2. Chapter 2

Kyouya was woken from a dream, something pleasant that scattered like birds when Tamaki’s movement beside him pulled him up into consciousness. “Are you all right?” he murmured blearily.

“Bathroom,” Tamaki mumbled, cursing as he tried to get himself upright.

Kyouya sat up, sliding out of bed. “Easy, let me help you.” Between the two of them they got him on his feet, and Kyouya stood awkwardly outside the attached bathroom as Tamaki took care of the problem. When the door opened again, Kyouya took in the discoloration the cream had left on Tamaki’s bandages, and glanced at the clock. “Let me change that again before you go back to sleep. We can rinse it better with the showerhead.”

Tamaki rubbed his eyes like a tired child and nodded. “All right.”

It took more care this time to get the gauze off, but fortunately Tamaki was half-asleep enough that he didn’t put up any resistance. Kyouya turned to the bath, adjusting the water meticulously and setting it to the gentlest spray; when he turned around, he was startled to find Tamaki already stepping gingerly out of his underwear. It wasn’t the first time Kyouya had seen that, either—Tamaki lacked any proper sense of modesty, which Kyouya had always attributed to his foreign upbringing—but it was certainly the first time he’d seen it alone with the boy in the middle of the night, with Tamaki’s yellow curls sticking up every which way and his eyes heavy-lidded with sleep. For half a moment Kyouya wished he had a camera; even with the frightful burn, Tamaki was astonishingly and unconsciously beautiful, and a photo of this moment would sell more copies to the Host Club guests than Kyouya could count. Then Tamaki looked up at him and reached out a hand to steady himself, and a sudden fierce possessiveness rose up in Kyouya’s limbs and his throat. This was a moment of beauty that no club guest would ever witness—this was for him alone to see.

“Kyouya?”

The dark-haired boy blinked, coming back to himself, and took Tamaki’s hand. “Come on, let’s get that rinsed off.” 

“Yours too,” Tamaki yawned, stepping into the tub, then gasped softly as Kyouya aimed the spray at his side.

“After I’m done with yours,” Kyouya murmured, offering his shoulder to keep Tamaki upright. They passed the rest of the routine in silence, Kyouya more conscious of Tamaki’s body than he’d ever been before as he taped the gauze down. Tamaki, yawning again, hooked his pajama pants with one foot, fumbling until Kyouya helped him pull them on, leaving his underwear discarded on the floor as too much bother. The blonde sighed as Kyouya settled him in bed again, and reached for him blindly. 

“Your bandage…”

“I’ll do it. You can barely open your eyes. Go back to sleep.”

Tamaki nodded. “Okay, Kyouya…” He was asleep a moment later, and Kyouya shook his head with a little chuckle.

It took some time to tend himself one-handed, and he was wide awake by the time he was done, so he sat beside Tamaki on the bed just watching the even rise and fall of his chest. Somehow, with a trickle of light filtering in through the window and the mansion drenched in night quiet, it seemed perfectly natural to stare, drinking Tamaki in. Kyouya had always been a night creature, and the intimate stillness of the wee hours was comfortable, safe. Gently, without really knowing why, he reached out to lay his good hand against the smooth white expanse of Tamaki’s chest to feel his pulse just under the skin. Slowly, mesmerized, he traced the soft definition of a pectoral muscle, followed the line up and traced the hollow of Tamaki’s collarbone. With light fingers he drew a path along one white shoulder and down the inside of a sleep-limp arm, tracing the veins in his wrist and the tendons in his smooth fingers. Tamaki’s hand twitched softly in his sleep, and Kyouya smiled, splaying his hand over Tamaki’s ribs instead and back up to feel his heartbeat. He let his fingers slide up along the other boy’s throat and along the side of his face, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear and tracing the delicate curve of it, stroking his thumb over Tamaki’s high cheekbone. 

“Kyouya,” the blonde breathed, almost imperceptibly, and the Shadow King pulled his hand back sharply. Without opening his eyes, Tamaki reached for him. “Don’t stop, Kyouya…that feels good…”

Caught inorexibly by Tamaki’s hand and his drowsy voice, Kyouya slid his fingers into the other boy’s hair, traced his hairline and the path from his eyebrow down the bridge of his nose. Tamaki sighed again, lips parting; drawn, Kyouya traced his lower lip with the pad of his thumb. It was then that Tamaki’s eyes half opened and fixed on Kyouya’s face. They were dark and drowsy, but there was something else in them too, something Kyouya tried not to think about, because his body understood though his mind would not follow. He slid his fingers down Tamaki’s throat, and they trembled a little against his collarbone; with their eyes locked in the dark room, Kyouya slid his fingertips across Tamaki’s nipple. A soft involuntary sound escaped the blonde’s lips, and his chest rose a little into Kyouya’s hand; in the stillness and silence of the room, that sound shot through Kyouya’s body like an electric current along his limbs, his chest and his groin tightening in response. That single sound, Kyouya reflected later, drove him a little bit mad, and he leaned over Tamaki to press their mouths together.

The kiss was slow at first as they took in the shape of each other; Tamaki slid his fingers into Kyouya’s hair, and their noses bumped as they fumbled for the right angle. Then Kyouya brushed Tamaki’s nipple again to catch that delicious sound in his mouth, and without either of them knowing how they’d gotten there, their tongues connected and they sank into each other with sudden insistence. When they came up for air, with Tamaki’s hands up under Kyouya’s shirt and pressed into his shoulderblades and Kyouya’s good hand fitted into the hollow of Tamaki’s hip, they caught each other’s eyes. _I’m afraid,_ Kyouya’s said, more frankly than his mouth ever would have. _I don’t know what this is. I did not plan for it._

 _It’s all right,_ Tamaki’s eyes replied, his flushed face somber and heated at once. _Just keep touching me...._ The blonde slid one hand down to cover Kyouya’s, guiding it along his thigh; Kyouya sat back at Tamaki’s side, trembling with something, with a rush of feeling he couldn’t sort through, but his hand still followed the line of Tamaki’s slender leg, circling over his knee and then up the inside of his thigh. Tamaki’s legs parted a little in response, his eyes still holding Kyouya’s with sudden surety; staring at Tamaki, chest aching and breath a little too fast, Kyouya slid his hand higher and settled it over the bulge of Tamaki’s erection, startled by the heat that radiated through the thin pajama fabric and by the hardness of it pressing up into his palm. 

“Kyouya,” Tamaki breathed again, and the strained sound of it made the dark-haired boy shiver. With shaking fingers he traced Tamaki’s anatomy through the fabric; breaking their eye contact for the first time, the blonde tipped his head back a little, reaching out to grip Kyouya’s thigh. Something in Kyouya that had been holding back rushed to the surface then, and with sudden assurance he dipped his hand into the pajamas’ open fly to slide his fingers over Tamaki’s skin. The grip on his thigh tightened, slid upward; Kyouya eased Tamaki’s erection out through the fly, leaning across the blonde’s good side and over his hip to lick a bead of precum from the tip.

“Ah!” Tamaki lifted his head, surprised by the sudden sensation, and Kyouya glanced over at him with the same somber, heated eyes the blonde had turned on him before. Tamaki smiled slowly at that, then lay back in the pillows again, his hand trailing up under Kyouya’s shirt to find his nipples. The touch was electric, and the dark-haired boy was overcome—nothing mattered now except Tamaki’s hand against his skin and the pulsing heat of his cock at Kyouya’s lips. All hesitation gone, Kyouya closed his mouth around Tamaki, his tongue knowing at least a little bit of what to do.

Not that practice would have mattered; Tamaki gasped, his hips twitching under the weight of Kyouya’s resting bandaged arm, his hand scrabbling for purchase on Kyouya’s skin. Fumbling but concentrated, the dark-haired boy worked lips and tongue and fingers and teeth, urged on by Tamaki’s moans and bitten-back cries. Tamaki, undone with pleasure, dug his fingernails into Kyouya’s chest and reached blindly downward into his pants, closing a fist around him. The dark-haired boy’s moan rumbled around Tamaki’s cock, surprising them both; this was nothing, Kyouya reflected distractedly, like the familiar feeling of his own hand on his erection. Tamaki’s long fingers teased and pulled and pumped, and Kyouya’s pleasure rose with blinding speed, overcoming any of the Ootori decorum that might have remained. Together they panted and cried out, disassembled until they became only skin against skin, cocks straining against each other, animal moans neither of them knew they or each other could make. Then Tamaki squeezed Kyouya reflexively, his heels scrabbling against the bed, feet arching out of the corner of Kyouya’s eye.

“Kyouya…I…I’m…I’m a-a-almost…aahhh…” Tamaki stuttered, his words devolving into an urgent whine. 

“Tama…” was all Kyouya could manage in reply, taking him in as deeply as he dared, thrusting into the other boy’s fisted hand. 

“Please, please, oh _please,_ ” the blonde panted, and then all at once his back arched sharply and his limbs went rigid. Kyouya pulled back, replacing his mouth with his hand as Tamaki cried out, high and birdlike and astonished, and came hard; the dark-haired boy leaned in on sudden impulse to catch some in his mouth, his brain and body on fire. He came a moment later, pleasure rocking through him like an earthquake, blinding, almost unbearable, and he pressed his face into Tamaki’s hip and screamed.

***

When they’d pumped each other dry and the world came back into focus, Kyouya collapsed beside Tamaki with trembling limbs, his heart racing still. Tamaki, face red and flushed, his bottom lip swollen and peppered with his own teeth marks, stretched over to kiss him. There was no real heat in it this time, not like there was before; Tamaki’s lips moved over his with sudden palpable tenderness. For the first time since Kyouya’d heard Tamaki play the piano the week they met, his eyes filled, then overflowed between them. He sobbed once against Tamaki’s mouth as he fought for self-control; Tamaki, startled, wiped the tears from his cheeks with urgent fingers. “Kyouya? What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”

Kyouya forced his eyes open again to meet Tamaki’s; the other boy’s were vibrant and anxious, so blatantly honest that Kyouya could barely stand it. He pressed his good hand over his face, but the pain of his burn and the receding pleasure in his body and Tamaki’s damned _tenderness_ had stripped away any vestige of his usual tight control. “You always..!” he sobbed out. “You always _get_ to me!”

Carefully, Tamaki pulled Kyouya close against his shoulder, wrapping his arms around him. “I’m sorry, Kyouya. But it’s okay to let go sometimes. You’re safe with me.”

“Dammit, Tamaki!” he shouted against the blonde’s skin. “You fucking _scared_ me! I thought that water was going to hit your face, what if it had gotten in your _eyes_? God _dammit_ ….”

“Kyouya…” Tamaki murmured softly, tightening his hold. “I’m sorry, Kyouya. I’m sorry. It’ll be okay now.”

“I thought I could get you out of the way,” Kyouya sobbed, the rage passing as quickly as it had come, replaced with the naked memory of fear. Tamaki’s fingers went stiff against his back.

“You…is that how your arm got burned?” Kyouya didn’t answer, or couldn’t, as the pent up emotion seeped out of his limbs; he took a slow breath to calm himself, inhaling Tamaki’s scent, sweat and sex and the sharp smell of medicinal cream, layered over something that Kyouya knew was just Tamaki, the way his best friend always smelled. Tamaki smoothed his hair with a little tremble in his fingers. “Kyouya.”

“I don’t know what this is, Tamaki,” he murmured softly, suddenly lost. “I don’t know—”

“This is just us,” Tamaki answered, pressing a kiss to his hair. “You’re my best friend, Kyouya. I love you. I would have burned my arm to save your face. That’s what best friends do.”

“Do best friends give each other blowjobs, too?”

“Why not,” Tamaki replied, “if they love each other?”

Kyouya turned his face up a little. “The Ootoris don’t generally…love people.”

Tamaki smiled. “You don’t have to say it with your mouth. You say it with everything else.”

Silence fell for a minute or two as Kyouya’s breathing slowed, Tamaki’s fingers tracing circles on his shoulderblades. The smell of him, the warmth of his skin and his rhythmic touch lulled Kyouya somehow; he felt himself calming, but he was loose, open, raw in a way he’d never been before. Open, but not empty; all the places where the walls had fallen down, Tamaki filled with quiet words and gentle limbs, and when Kyouya spoke again, he knew any doubts he might have had were gone.

“Tamaki.”

“Mmm?”

“We should take a shower before the maids wake up.”

“Mmmm.”

***

It was just before lunch when Shima knocked on the door to tell them visitors had arrived. “Perfect timing,” Tamaki told her. “We just finished with the new bandages. Do you think we could have lunch in the sitting room? So I can lay on the couch?”

“Of course, Master Tamaki,” Shima replied. “Shall I send your friends up first?”

Tamaki shook his head. “No, we’ll come down. It smells like a hospital up here, I don’t want them to worry more than they already will.”

“Very well.” Shima closed the door behind her, and Tamaki sighed, flopping back onto the pillows.

Kyouya, dressed in borrowed clothes, stood adjusting himself at the mirror. Tamaki watched him sideways and smiled. “Did you think you’d look different today?”

“Do I?”

“Just a little bit. They might see it, but only Hikaru would be crass enough to bring it up.”

Kyouya snorted. “Let’s hope he doesn’t.”

Tamaki just smiled and reached out a hand. “They’re our family. Let them see it. Now come help me up, we shouldn’t leave them waiting.”

They all crowded around when Kyouya and Tamaki appeared, asking questions and talking all at once. 

“We brought some snacks,” Kaoru offered, and Hikaru draped himself over the younger twin’s shoulder. 

“And some fun stuff to keep you busy while you’re stuck in bed.”

“And some cake!” Honey exclaimed.

“How are you both feeling?” Haruhi put in, and Tamaki practically glowed as they followed him to the sofa.

“Oh, you’re all so sweet!” the Host King gushed as Kyouya propped him up with pillows. “Not to worry, okaasan’s been taking excellent care of me. We’ll both be healed up soon.”

“Good, ‘cause we’re bored,” the twins said together, Hikaru pouting a little. “Summer break’s no fun without all of us together.”

“Maybe we should start making plans for a trip, once Tama-chan can travel. Don’t you think, Takashi?”

“Yeah.”

“Some of us actually care about doing summer homework, you know.”

A pleasantly familiar amount of chaos descended as the servants brought in lunch and Haruhi argued uselessly against a group vacation; Kyouya, feeling drowsy but comforted by the normalcy, settled cross-legged on the floor beside the sofa with a half-smile on his face. Tamaki seemed entirely himself again, and it was easy to sit back and let the others talk around him. Kyouya almost missed having his notebook in his hand, though there was nothing to take notes on now—except perhaps the light brush of Tamaki’s fingers in his hair or along his shoulder every now and then, like a little reminder.

Joyful with the freedom of summer, the hosts stayed all afternoon; they brought a tv in to watch an old movie, and the twins somehow wrangled Haruhi into a uniform, pinafore and all, that they swiped from one of the maids’ rooms. The game devolved until somehow Kaoru was wearing the maid uniform while Hikaru and Honey ordered him around to hilarious effect, and when they were all exhausted from laughing and cake, Haruhi caught Mori’s eye to round them up. Honey hugged Kyouya enthusiastically and Tamaki carefully before leaving on Mori’s back; the twins pressed the “fun stuff” box into Kyouya’s good hand with matching grins, and Haruhi promised she would call and check in on them both tomorrow. When the sitting room was finally quiet again, Kyouya glanced over at Tamaki and smiled; the Host King was bright and flushed, drunk with human contact, but there were little tired creases around his eyes and a pained set to his lips.

“Come on, let’s get you back in bed.”

Finally, settled in with fresh bandages and pajamas and dinner on a tray by the bed (because Shima, astute woman that she was, called the Ootori mansion to inform them Master Kyouya would be staying for the week), Tamaki reached for the box of fun stuff and sorted through it with a delighted smile. “Ooh, commoner freebies!” he exclaimed, then laughed. “And an assortment of celebrity gossip rags…those two.” Then he pulled out a bulging envelope, with “our favorite brand” written on the outside, and two doodles of smiling identical faces with peace sign fingers. “What’s this?”

Kyouya leaned closer to look as Tamaki pulled a bottle from the envelope, holding it up and then flushing scarlet. Kyouya took it, turning it over to read the label, and blinked.

“Lube? But how could they _possibly_ have…”

“They are rather perceptive…”

“And their _favorite brand_?” 

“Well, Kyouya,” Tamaki said, turning his flushed face up with a wicked little smile. “The twins love each other, too.”

Kyouya turned the little bottle over again in his hand and met Tamaki’s eyes. “I suppose, if it comes so highly recommended…”

“…it couldn’t hurt to try it out,” Tamaki finished.


End file.
